Yesterday on Morning Edition, there was a story about the "Life As a Black Man". The reporter Alex Chadwick claims that this board game is different from Monopoly in that "it grounds itself in contemporary American life in a way that's a lot more genuine than real estate shenanigans". He also characterizes race as "the fundamental American story", so apparently that's really all that matters to him.


And to NPR, I guess. Also yesterday on All Things Considered, there was an item about "Pedro Rivera". This "entrepreneur" (what's wrong with calling him a businessman?) "exemplifies the new California -- where the diversity of the population is often a reason for entrepreneurial success." So a successful business--excuse me, enterprise--is of note only because it somehow impinges on this question of "diversity".

I'll admit these stories are interesting. But is race really the fundamental American story? Isn't there something else to American life?